Crispin Odey urged a woman he groped at the headquarters of his hedge fund to downplay the incident to the monetary watchdog whereas it thought-about whether or not he ought to retain his regulatory approval as a “fit and proper person”.
The woman, who’s the twentieth to come ahead to the Financial Times with claims of sexual misconduct towards the financier, stated she was assaulted by Odey in 2005 when she was an worker at his hedge fund agency. She informed Odey Asset Management’s longstanding attorneys concerning the incident throughout an inner inquiry in 2021, the findings of which had been additionally shared with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.
The former worker informed a lawyer at Simmons & Simmons {that a} “culture of fairly prolific sexual harassment” from Odey prevailed at his agency, in accordance to paperwork seen by the FT.
In Odey’s first admission of sexual misconduct towards any of the 20 ladies who’ve made allegations towards him, he informed the FT: “The girl concerned did work for me in 2005 and I did grab her breasts and it was reported and investigated . . . I had just come back from having two hours [of] canal root fillings and was under heavy medication.”
The woman’s testimony given to Simmons raises additional questions over what info the legislation agency included in its report, and why the FCA continued to view Odey as “fit and proper”. Her account additional suggests a tradition of complicity at the agency the place Odey’s abusive behaviour in the direction of ladies seems to have been extensively tolerated.
The FT’s earlier reporting detailed that he allegedly sexually harassed or assaulted 19 other women between 1985 and 2021. Of these, 12 had been workers of the agency. In 2021, Odey was acquitted of a criminal charge of indecent assault. After the FT’s preliminary report in June, banks and repair suppliers moved shortly to sever ties with Odey Asset Management and the agency’s companions ousted Odey from the enterprise he based in 1991, forcing the corporate to break itself up.
The new woman’s account has been corroborated by paperwork seen by the FT in addition to by means of interviews with a member of the family in whom she confided at the time of the incident.
The woman claims the financier sexually assaulted her when she was working late within the agency’s Mayfair workplace alone one night. She stated Odey walked up behind her and massaged her shoulders earlier than shifting his palms over her chest and groping each of her breasts.
“I was shocked and screamed, ‘Crispin, what the hell are you doing?’,” she stated.
He pulled away, apologised and left, in accordance to the woman. The subsequent day she reported the incident to Odey Asset Management’s then-chair, David Fletcher, who later gave her a typed file observe recording the incident. A duplicate was additionally given to Odey, the woman stated.
“At the time I was gobsmacked they put it in writing,” she stated. The observe stated that, at the time of the assault, Odey had been beneath the affect of medication he had taken throughout a dentist’s appointment.
Odey Asset Management stored a report of the incident in its human sources recordsdata, in accordance to paperwork seen by the FT. The woman stayed at the agency till 2014 and stated the financier didn’t sexually assault or harass her once more.
Odey informed the FT he had been “truly apologetic to the girl in question”, a woman then in her early 30s, and the truth that she stayed at the agency confirmed she “understood that this had been an aberration”.
“There was no attempt to hide this incident. It was not good but very much down to the anaesthetic,” he added.
In early 2022, after the FCA had opened an investigation into Odey over potential misconduct, the woman obtained a textual content from the fund supervisor, which learn: “I really am sorry to get you involved but the FCA have been pursuing a vendetta against both OAM and myself and you are being used by them to show that there were no controls and you were in fear of my position in the company which stopped you from speaking out.”
“I am truly sorry for embarrassing you so long ago but I do not think that it is reason enough to close down OAM and call me unfit and improper. They may want to call you,” he concluded. The message was signed “Cx”.
She stated she didn’t reply.
The FCA declined to remark. Odey has remained a match and correct individual on the watchdog’s register of individuals holding regulatory approval and the FCA’s probe is ongoing.
The woman was additionally contacted in December 2020 by Odey Asset Management’s in-house lawyer who requested if she would take part within the probe led by Simmons & Simmons.
In a transcript of a January 2021 cellphone name, seen by the FT, a lawyer at Simmons defined to her it was a “fact-finding exercise” and requested to focus on the 2005 incident that had been stored on file. The FT beforehand reported that Odey Asset Management had a number of related situations on file, together with this 2005 criticism, a 2004 sexual harassment criticism and more moderen complaints made in 2020.
After describing the assault and a “culture of fairly prolific sexual harassment” from him at his agency, she informed Simmons that she didn’t recall “any measure/rule put in place after the event to safeguard her”.
Simmons stated its report “addressed the full scope of the inquiry” however declined to remark additional, citing consumer confidentiality.
Odey Asset Management declined to remark.
The woman informed the FT that working at Odey Asset Management had warped her notion of what’s “normal workplace behaviour” and that she had determined to come ahead now after a lot consideration as a result of she feels “obligated to say something”.
“I’m not doing this for anything other than doing the right thing,” she stated. “I want to show my [children] that I’m willing to do the right thing in the right circumstances.”
Additional reporting by Madison Marriage in London
